Microserfs

menu. So later on I’m going to experiment with this.

Abe:

It stopped raining today, so I wnet out and bounced around on the trampoline. But it wansn’t the same without Bug standing on the sidelines outlining quadripoligeia in exquisite detail.

I wonder if maybe I don’t talk to enough humans in a given day … I have a few casual interactions, but nothing really. And people I’m technically close with, like my family … I don’t discuss deep things with them, either.

Anyways, it seeems okay for us to talk abuout things. I’ve never really done this before. And sometimes I feel kind of lost. There-I’ve revealed too much. I’m going to send you this before I can stop myself.

Barbecue dinner tonight chez Mom and Dad.

We were discussing the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held every January in Las Vegas and every July in Chicago, and Mom asked us why CES is so important, and Ethan, disdaining food, plucking a grapefruit from a tree beside the wisteria vine, replied pronto. He’s so nice to my mother. They get along so well. But he’s not Eddie Haskell nice. He’s just nice nice. He’s also an information leaf blower:

“The CES began as an annual Las Vegas car speaker and pornography trade show. It only incidentally began showcasing video games in the early 1980s. Games were considered a sideline novelty and have only recently been revealed as the passageway for the future of the human race. Editorials aside, in Las Vegas at CES you have what’s called the ‘Demo Derby.’ Companies like us have to have a working demo of our products to show the outlets — Toys-R-Us, Blockbuster, and Target — as well as business plans and market research. As well you have what are called ‘product sneaks’—you show the press your product so you can attract potential licensee software developers as well as drum up new business. I’ve been to eighteen CES shows. They make or break you.”

After this, Susan said, “You’d think I was at Sea World and had asked Ethan about Shamu’s feeding habits. How does he remember this stuff? He just reels it off.”

Bug has broken up with Jeremy, who he says is too politicized and too extreme. He was fairly open about it with Karla and me.

“Jeremy wanted me to be just like him, which wouldn’t be so bad, except he’s just like all of his friends. It’s like Coeur d’Alene all over again — except with pasta and better defined pectorals. And it doesn’t annoy me that Jeremy wants me to be just like him. That’s actually kind of nice. But what bothers me is that Jeremy is just essentially not like me, and we’re too disparate to ever be in sync. I thought, you know, dating would be a bit easier. It’s not. And what’s truly freaky is realizing I’m vulnerable to identity changes because I’m so desperate to find a niche. I feel like Crystal Pepsi.”

In the middle of all this, Dad was putzing around in the background. He’s building my space station I’m designing in real space and real time. He asked me where the box with 8-stud beams was. (“Over there by the bowl of plastic eyeballs.” “Oh right — there they are.”)

Bug continued, “I know I’m sort of a nerd and I don’t dress nicely and I grouch out at times, but I still want to be me. I want to find somebody else, sure, but I also don’t want to end up harder at the end of all of this.” He went back to work.

Ethan sauntered through. “Milestones? Are we meeting our milestones, O content delivery system of mine?”

Susan, Emmett, Dusty, and about a dozen Chyx organized together over the Net, and decided to picket Fry’s for fostering female de-intelligence by not selling tampons. The San Jose Mercury News interviewed them, took their picture, and left soon enough. Victory!

* * *

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* * *

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lu oculaca oeeo ea oo[2]

SATURDAY